


Changes

by ReaderRose



Series: Babbles and Drabbles [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Papyrus Remembers Resets, Sans Remembers Resets, Undertale Reset Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderRose/pseuds/ReaderRose
Summary: 500 Word DrabbleWith every reset, Papyrus changed, just a little.





	Changes

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to try to write some of The Kings Beneath The Mountain this morning but I accidentally did this instead. This is related, but not actually a part of that at all. 
> 
> It's also pretty much the polar opposite scenario to Equals. 
> 
> I just thought this was an interesting scenario no matter what the answers here actually are. Not a single possibility is positive! :D

Sans had always wondered if Papyrus remembered. 

He seemed to always change, just a little, just a smidge, with each and every reset. One time, he would declare that they needed to go sledding. Another, he wanted to build snowmen. Another, a visit to the Capital. Let's see the stars! Let's go swimming in the lake! This time, he had a great jape for them to play together! This time, the jape was on Sans. This time, he was going to play a game with Undyne. This time, he was going to befriend Alphys. 

For as nice as it was to see something change, to see his brother living each new day as it's own, even if it was the same day, endlessly looping again and again, Sans couldn't help but feel… uneasy about it. Papyrus never acknowledged the resets. He didn't seem to fret over them. Nothing was out of place but the fact that each reset brought a new scheme, a new idea, a new way to have fun. 

 

Perhaps Sans should have just been happy with that. 

 

When things started to change, he didn't worry so much. Papyrus was sick. Papyrus was calling off work. Papyrus wasn't making spaghetti, he was making pancakes. Sure, it was different. Sure, it had never happened before, and sure, Papyrus  _ never _ got sick… but Papyrus was always up to something new.

He wasn't going to worry. Papyrus was always different. Because he was so cool, and so special, and so great, and that was what Sans had been saying all along. 

He wasn't worried all those times that Papyrus had changed the script. Papyrus was never the type to fall into routine. 

 

But Sans started to worry when the next reset was just…  _ standard. _

And the next. And the next. 

 

And the next… 

 

Papyrus  _ changed. _ Because he  _ wasn't _ changing. He hadn't changed a thing. Suddenly he was exactly the same, each time, and it was… terrifying. It was subtle, nothing anyone but him could even notice, but it chilled Sans to his core to watch his brother take the same steps, the same route. There was something so uncanny about the way he made the same spaghetti each morning, the same jokes at breakfast. He recalibrated the same puzzle each time, mechanically, robotically. There was no enthusiasm, no talk of humans, no talk of the future. 

Papyrus just did everything the same.

Again. 

And again. 

 

And again…

 

And suddenly, Papyrus wasn't the exception. He wasn't special. He wasn't unique. He didn't deviate from The Plan. He just lived the same days, again, and again, and again.

And when Sans himself tried to break the pattern, tried to start a new day out of the old one, Papyrus refused to follow. 

Now, Sans had nothing left to look forward to. Just the same empty smile, the same morning, the same day, the same Papyrus, tightening the same bolts into infinity. 

 

 

Something _ changed.  _

 

  
And Sans was left wondering, once again, if Papyrus remembered.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Still working on TKBTM next chapter and some request fics. Also doing a lot of fanart (and updates) over at drundertalescum on Tumblr. Come say hello!


End file.
